At the theatre entrance there was more banging and more bustle, and
there were also Messrs Pyke and Pluck waiting to escort her to her box;
and so polite were they, that Mr Pyke threatened with many oaths to
'smifligate' a very old man with a lantern who accidentally stumbled
in her way--to the great terror of Mrs Nickleby, who, conjecturing
more from Mr Pyke's excitement than any previous acquaintance with the
etymology of the word that smifligation and bloodshed must be in
the main one and the same thing, was alarmed beyond expression, lest
something should occur. Fortunately, however, Mr Pyke confined himself
to mere verbal smifligation, and they reached their box with no more
serious interruption by the way, than a desire on the part of the same
pugnacious gentleman to 'smash' the assistant box-keeper for happening
to mistake the number.
Mrs Nickleby had scarcely been put away behind the curtain of the box in
an armchair, when Sir Mulberry and Lord Verisopht arrived, arrayed from
the crowns of their heads to the tips of their gloves, and from the
tips of their gloves to the toes of their boots, in the most elegant and
costly manner.
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